UP System Is NOT Contributing To The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) According To 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) World Ranking – As An Alumnus, I Ask, “Is UPLB Concerned?”

What’s happening to the University of the Philippines System (UP System), of which my alma mater UP Los Baños is a part? It is not contributing to the attainment of the world’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)!?

I am reading Christia Marie Ramos’ Inquirerreport of 29 April 2022 – “CHEd: 15 PH Universities Among Top Institutions In UN SDGs Global Ranking” (newsinfo.inquirer.net). The list is found in the 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) World Ranking.

Ateneo University(top image) is PH’s #1 – and the UP System is not in the top list! Is that a reporter’s mistake? I checked. No, it’s a university’s mistake – the UP System is not paying much attention as to how it can contribute much to attain the UN’s SDGs!

Ms Christia says:

CHEd noted that the THE Impact Rankings is “one of the most influential rankings” and is the “only global performance table that assesses universities’ contributions and initiatives to realize” the UN SDGs.

“The assessment uses calibrated indicators to provide comprehensive and balanced comparisons across four broad areas: research, teaching, outreach, and stewardship,” it said.

Implying that the UP System is average in research, teaching, outreach and stewardship when it comes to the attainment of the UN’s SDGs! That surprises this alumnus because UP Los Baños is now digital, as at the gate this is proudly proclaimed.
(my photograph, 05 March 2019)

Is this alumnus ashamed? No. Because unlike the UN experts, I have graduated from the “University of Sustainable Development” to the “University of Regenerative Development.”

I now believe the world should be pursuing Regenerative Agriculture (RAg) instead of Sustainable Agriculture (SAg).

The Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program of the University of California Davis says (sarep.ucdavis.edu):

The goal of sustainable agriculture is to meet society’s food and textile needs in the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

I now say from where I stand – on healthy grounds renewed with richness by regenerative organic agriculture since 1966 when I discovered American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner’s “Minimum Tillage” that he called “Trash Farming,” and considering Climate Change among others:

Beyond food & textile, the most pressing need of the world right now is to combat Climate Change, and SAg is sagging there. In contrast, RAg can rage against the Climate Crisis!

How? RAg does all these:

1.     zeroes (stops) generation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the field (organic fertilizers do not generate GHGs); and simultaneously

2.     increases (maximizes) generation of healthy soils, healthy fields, healthy foods, healthy pockets, and healthy climates (back to 1. above).

Importantly, will UP Los Baños now upscale its institutional RAg-oriented
Research
Teaching
Outreach and
Stewardship?

Pursuing new knowledge & innovation, educating the aggie students on those needs, getting such knowledge out into the awareness of citizens, and managing what it can, are what UPLB should be doing for Regenerative Agriculture.

It is the least UPLB can do for our country!@517